Aruba, September 3, 2018 - In about a decade, one-third of current jobs could be automated. This doesn't have to be a doomsday prediction if your plant can figure out how this paradigm shift will enhance your current workers.

Every week, there's a new article about AI and automation becoming more efficient at manual tasks. By 2030, the McKinsey Institute estimates 39 to 73 million jobs or one-third of the United States workforce will be automated.

With no added context, this statistic sounds scary. Why would Americans invent themselves out of work? Unemployment and automation are not synonymous. Using these advancements, in tandem with human ingenuity, can make better work environments, products, and services without an overhaul of known employment demographics.The human species has been here before, many, many times. It's not a doomsday scenario for manufacturing industries of mass unemployment. What about how workers felt when the Industrial Revolution came to pass, or when IBM developed machines capable of completing thousands of permutations faster than any human? Each time we've advanced our technology, there were growing pains. Manufacturers trained workers on new machinery in the Industrial Revolution, and humans learned to use new technology to develop theorems and advancements that improved our production capabilities with stunning accuracy.

This generation's "growing pains" are happening right before our eyes, and the manufacturing industry must shift mindsets about how to redefine existing roles and optimize operations to create opportunities that enable new career trajectories. Graduates today do not know a time when they haven't had a personal computer in their pocket, and they demand an innovative career that enables them to use technology to do their jobs faster and more efficiently. Sixty-seven percent of companies in the manufacturing industry worldwide now have ongoing smart factory initiatives, and those that don't think ahead about this technological transformation will be left behind.